SRA pushing to replace LPC with on the job training

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has kicked-off a second consultation over its proposal that the Solicitors Qualifying Examination should replace the GDL and LPC. The LPC would effectively be abandoned and replaced with an assessment after on the job training.

The proposed SQE would be divided into two stages, with SQE 1 examining legal knowledge such as contract, tort, property, commercial, public and criminal law. The second stage, SQE 2, would assess legal skills gained from the workplace which could be covered during an apprenticeship, paralegal work, or even a student law clinic - so not just a training contract. Speaking to RollOnFriday, the executive director of policy at the SRA Crispin Passmore said that SQE 2 would get rid of the "LPC gamble" through which students pay a fortune to study the LPC "just hoping they're going to get a job at the end of it".

Work-based learning in action, yesterday

However professor Peter Crisp, Dean of BPP Law School told RollOnFriday “the whole proposal is utterly misconceived and wrong-headed as we said in our response to the first consultation.”

Although the Vice-Provost at The University of Law, professor Becky Huxley-Binns, disagreed, telling RollOnFriday that "we welcome the flexibility of approach to workplace training". However she voiced some concerns over SQE 1 saying that the scope of the course would "require students to demonstrate knowledge, understanding, application and analysis of complex law" more than "the GDL and LPC core combined".

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Ditch EU law for the examined component. No one will need to know about it now.

As ever, where the accountants lead (by decades) we follow. This is the correct way forward and will end the racket of law schools promising kids the world only to land them with a useless qualification and no chance of a training contract. I say this as a 40 something lawyer who has had to tell far too many LPCs that they have no hope of ever becoming solicitors.

I have just put in my objections to this. I hope other posters do. The original consultation did not gain positive responses either and yet they put this out again. How many chances do they get? Why subject students to exams at the end of their TC? It's not nice for them. Also why change what works? It will also engrain privilege as those who are well off will take training for the final exam and be able to pay for it and take time off for it. Better to keep the current system and keep professional standards up. So many people go to law school who should not be there - not bright enough, their English is not good enough etc.

I am not against returning to three colleges of law as in the old days but letting law firms decide who is good enough for a TC is much better than letting people who are not up to the mark qualify which will reduce professional standards.

How can this NOT be the way forward? Too many people are getting into greater and greater debt only to end up not having a job at the end of it. Moving to on the job training has potential to broaden accessibility to the profession and on the job training is likely to be more relevant than classroom based teaching in any event.

What a shame. I had a great time on my LPC!!!

Accountants also pioneered open plan and hot-desking. What a heap of turd that turned out to be.

The alternative is the Northern Ireland system where you can only get a place to take the LPC equivalent if you already have a TC confirmed...

It's going to be absurd for law firms to have hundreds of thousands, millions of pounds in the largest cases, sat in their Apprenticeship Levy accounts, unusable against traditional LPC fees, when the same firms could take graduates on as solicitor apprentices and pay for their training out of money they have already to hand over as levy funds. To keep with the old system they will have to pay twice.

This sounds a thoroughly sensible idea. It's high time they scrapped the LPC. Really though, it's just going back to the traditional route to admission before some genius thought you could teach vocational in a classroom.

The simplest approach to maintaining standards and avoiding the need to have this crazy two-tier set of exams (and BTW all will have to be examined on will and trusts and criminal lit - really helpful to commercial lawyers) would be for the SRA to moderate/mark the exams (just like the Law Society used to). Professional standards have dropped as institutions have been able to mark their own students (who they've charged ridiculous sums to educate - badly).

Having qualified in a jurisdiction where graduates went straight into firms to complete a year of articles, I support this fully. I've never heard anyone say anything good about the LPC (other than that it's a good time to party).

This is long, long, LONG overdue. The LPC is a waste of time and money. I learnt more in one month as a trainee than I did in a year on the LPC.

It seems that the SQE will be based on the QLTS. The pass rate for the MCT part of the QLTS was 52% in the July 2016 sitting. See https://qlts.kaplan.co.uk/results

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